I Should Die

crunching sound as they hit the wood, and the impact—one I could normally spring back up from—has me crouching, unable to straighten myself because my long-unused leg muscles have seized up.
    I’m stuck there for a full three seconds, my heart beating like a drum, panicky that Violette will appear in front of me before I can get safely into the water. Be calm and think , I urge myself, and scan the space around me for anything that can be used as a weapon.
    Just in time. As I push myself, with effort, into a standing position, I feel a hand clamp down on my shoulder. I look around to see one of the numa guards from the hotel scowling down at me.

THIRTY-NINE
    “HEY!” THE NUMA SHOUTS. BEFORE HE CAN ALERT the others, I grab a metal oar attached to the wall next to me and swing it as hard as I can against his head. I am still weak, but seem to have hit him in the right spot, because he releases my shoulder and staggers backward just as another numa arrives on the deck and starts toward me.
    “What is going on?” I hear Violette scream, and then I am diving off the boat’s deck into the frigid water below.
    I swim with determined strokes toward the shore. If I am the Champion, it definitely hasn’t made me any stronger. I am tired and weak, but panic moves me quickly through the water. I thank my lucky stars that I was already a good swimmer when I was human.
    When I was human . My chest constricts, and I falter in my stroke. I’m a monster. No, you’re a revenant , I correct, urging my body forward.
    I hear a splash in the water behind me. And then another. I assume that the numa guards are chasing me, but I don’t take the time to look back. I struggle through the water, my muscles searing with pain, heading straight for the riverbank.
    Suddenly someone else is in my head. Gaspard. Kate, I am leading the others to the point where you are coming ashore. The numa will reach land before the kindred get to you. You will have to fight.
    Can your future-sight tell me if I will win? I ask, fighting to maintain my speed.
    No, I can’t see that.
    Another few minutes and my feet touch the ground. I surge out of the water onto the shore. There are no buildings around, so we must be near one of the national parks outside of the Paris city limits. No one to see me. No one to call to for help , I think. It’s just me against the numa.
    Without looking back, I stumble forward, dripping and waterlogged and leaving a trail of bloody water behind me. Searching for anything I can use as a weapon, I grab a broken tree branch, snap it off, and strip it of its twigs as quickly as I can. It is almost the same size as the quarterstaff I trained on with Gaspard, although quite a bit heavier.
    I turn to face the water and am thrown for a moment. The two men swimming in the water have the same creepy red halo of light shining around them that they did on the boat. But now that they’re farther away, the red is illuminating the inky water beneath them and shooting straight up into the air like a beacon. I blink. The light subsides while my eyes are closed, but it flares back up when I focus on them again. As they approach, the light grows dimmer, until they are upon me, charging up out of the water and the beacon disappears, leaving only the misty red haloes.
    I don’t have time to consider what the strange optical illusion means right now. Gaspard was right to warn me: They are so close that if I run, they will quickly catch me. And I have no idea where I am. No sense of direction. It would be too easy for me to get lost trying to find a way out of the woods.
    Only five seconds elapse between the time I arm myself and the moment they are upon me, and I spend this flash of time furiously peeling bark away from one end of my stick.
    I try to strategize as I watch them approach. Panic engulfs me as I see their lumbering forms and realize I have no idea how to take on two numa at once . . . with only a stick. Don’t think. Just act , I tell myself. I breathe deeply and try to put myself into the zone—the frame of mind I’ve learned to slip into after months of fight training with Gaspard.
    I don’t have time to concentrate. My fingers are bleeding, and a shard of wood is stuck painfully beneath my nail. But the pain helps me focus. Stumbling slightly from the weight of the branch, I swing up and smash it against the shoulder of the first numa to reach me.
    He isn’t ready for the blow. Caught off balance, he stumbles and